Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Kanchan Mitra

Jeremy Max Stevens

Kyle James Krum

Jai Srinivasan

Jack Creasey

Robert E Corrington

Kenneth Lynn Crocker

Anna Timasheva

David V Gunter

Dipan Dewan

Michael Koenig

Ira Snyder

Kenneth W Wickes

Clark David Nicholson

Jay Beavers

Robert C Elmer

Sergei Osobov

Kaushik Barat

Ken Wickes

Mihai Iuga

A sidebar UI of an application program provides access to the application program's functionality while occupying a reduced amount of real estate on the screen when compared to conventional UIs. The sidebar UI comprises an icon or multiple icons, and each icon references a pane that provides its user the ability to access and utilize a function and/or feature of the application program. Selecting an icon in the sidebar UI causes the referenced pane which provides access to, for example, a feature of the application program to be displayed on the screen. 'Clicking off' the pane causes the pane to close.

System and method for displaying full product functionality using minimal user interface footprint

Techniques for enabling software-assisted assignment of control of peripherals (e.g., assigning ownership of or assigning access to the peripherals) by a computing device. In accordance with techniques described herein, assignment of control of peripherals is aided by input from software facilities that instruct a peripheral management facility regarding assignment of peripherals. Software facilities may instruct the peripheral management facility in different ways. In some cases, a software facility may instruct the peripheral management facility how to assign control of a peripheral in a particular way, while in other cases a software facility may instruct the peripheral management facility how to assign control of a group of peripherals. In other cases, a software facility may not instruct a peripheral management facility how to assign control of peripherals, but may identify one or more groups of peripherals for which control should be assigned as a group.

Assignment of control of peripherals of a computing device

Described herein are various techniques and principles for determining how to assign control of peripherals and assigning control of peripherals. In some embodiments, determining how to assign control of peripherals comprises reviewing connections of peripherals to the computing device and evaluating rules to determine management points in the connections. In some cases, the connections of peripherals to the computing device may be organized into a hierarchy corresponding to a hierarchy of physical connections of the peripherals, including physical connections of peripherals located remote from the computing device and possibly connected through another computing device. When management points are identified among the connections, control of peripherals associated with the management points may be assigned in the same way. For example, access rights to each of the peripherals may be assigned to a same user session.

Rule-based assignment of control of peripherals of a computing device

A technique for providing one class of users of an application a view of what a typical user in another class of users of the same application is visually experiencing. A client application that is interacting with the application provides a user an option of having a PIP view of what a typical user in one of the other classes of users supported by the application is visually experiencing. When the user requests to display a PIP view that represents what a typical user in a specified one of the other classes of users of the same application is seeing, a PIP view window is automatically rendered on the user's display screen. The PIP view window represents what a typical user in the specified one of the other classes of users is seeing, but is not an 'active' interface through which the user can interact with the application.

System and method for providing one class of users of an application a view of what another class of users of the application is visually experiencing

A method and system for tracking and editing a resource in a real-time collaborative session is provided. A collaboration system provides real-time collaborative sessions between participants. When a participant in a collaboration session uploads a non-editable copy of a resource for viewing in the collaborative session, the collaboration system records the participant who uploaded the non-editable copy of the resource as the owner of an original copy of the resource and the location of the resource on that participant's machine. When the same or another participant attempts to edit the non-editable copy of the resource during the collaborative session, the collaboration system locates the original copy of the resource and starts the sharing of the resource in an editable form in the collaborative session.

Tracking and editing a resource in a real-time collaborative session

A screen resolution information gathering and reporting system allows access to screen resolution information of attendees of a collaboration session. When attendees first join the collaboration session, each attendee's screen resolution information is gathered. The collected screen resolution information is then provided to the presenter of the collaboration session, for example, when the presenter joins the collaboration session or begins application sharing within the collaboration session.

System and method for gathering and reporting screen resolutions of attendees of a collaboration session

A data transfer protocol utilizes a set of actions for affecting different objects that are stored in a data store. The data transfer protocol supports a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that are applicable to the different objects. With the APIs, the data transfer protocol may synchronize a centralized data store with independent data stores. The data transfer protocol may support data that is hierarchical while maintaining referential integrity. Node objects may vary from nightly bulk uploads to interactive users uploading or querying smaller portions of the database. The data transfer protocol provides the semantics to carry out these operations with a fixed number of APIs for any arbitrary database. The data uploads may be sparse depending on what the remote data store holds and need not be in serial order.

Synchronizing centralized data store from distributed independent data stores using fixed application programming interfaces

A stream pipeline framework is supported that operates on sequential stream implementations. The stream pipeline framework comprises a chained configuration of push streams and pull streams. A stream may be configured as at least one functional component such as a transformer, a buffered read, a buffered write, a stream write, a stream read, a file read, and a file write. A data transformer supports a data transformation, including data deflation or inflation, encoding or decoding, encryption or decryption, filtering, or concatenation. A buffered read and a data write buffer sequential data streams in data segments. A stream read reads (pulls) sequential data from a stream, and a stream write writes (pushes) sequential data to a stream. A file read and a file write supports a stream for an entity that does not support a stream interface such as ISequentialStream.

Composable data streams for managing flows

A calculation engine processes user-definable formulas to generate calculation results. A calculation engine may use the following types of data structures: table, column, row, and field. A sub table may be embedded within a row. Operations may be performed at various levels, such as at: table, column, and field. A calculation engine may operate on a calculation table having columns, which may each have an ordered list of formulas. Formulas within such an ordered list may be evaluated in the order specified until one of the formulas is successfully evaluated. A hierarchy of formulas may be formed by a column's formula depending on another column or table. A graph of data dependencies may be prepared for determining an order in which operands and operations should be evaluated and performed.

Programmable calculation engine

A framework may include an object model and services. The framework may gather information at run-time from metadata within the object model before the framework operates on the classes. For a class within the object model, a subclass may be generated for containing pertinent metadata about the class. Through annotations of class members, the framework may determine the various types of data within the framework. This hierarchy information may specify how objects within the object model relate to one another. An annotation set within the subclass may contain information specifying how members of the class should behave, including, which services of the framework the class member should participate in and how the class member should participate. The annotations may be used for indicating how services of the framework should persist data to various storage units, such as an XML file and/or a database table.

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Woodinville, WA, United States of America

Kanchan Mitra